A Hallow Study
Final Chapter

At Baker Street, John quickly excused himself to call Mary to let him know that he would need to stay just a bit longer. Sherlock had already picked up his violin, playing by the window as Carla stood in the flat for the first time. One (or several) of Sherlock's experiments had obviously gone stale, given the smell. The lights were dim, as they would be in a horror film, but there was something homey about it all. Like each thing had its own place. Maybe it was just Sherlock's playing that had her feeling slightly more at ease. She had been used to the horrid sounds of a child learning how to play the violin. Frances, with all her cleverness, had failed to pick up the instrument's finer points. Hearing Sherlock play an actual melody was both grating and soothing at the same time.

"Beethoven, Violin Sonata No.8, Opus 24. Spring," she said softly, humming the piano accompaniment to match Sherlock's devastatingly slow tempo and lowered pitch. He stopped when he realised she was humming, and she stopped when she realised he heard her.

"Right, can I offer you a cuppa and biscuits?" John asked, reentering the apartment and heading straight to the kitchen. He paused to think if he should apologise for Sherlock's playing, but thought better against it and continued.
"Nothing with a severed finger, please," Carla said, smiling as she sat on the couch.
"Don't touch anything on the table, John," Sherlock not so gently reminded him, resuming his playing. He surreptitiously watched as Carla stood up from the couch and walked over to his desk.

Impatience (or perhaps boredom?) getting the best of her, she glanced at the files on his desk, no doubt reading Sherlock's fascinating study of the boiling point of various bodily fluids. Then she spotted the envelope Mrs. Hudson had left for him on the desk, her father's name written plainly for all to see. Sherlock resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Lestrade had once again, proven his lack of skill in the subtlety department.

"It's the Elder Wand," Carla suddenly said, cutting through Sherlock's playing like she had cut the strings of his violin.

"What?" John asked, coming in with a tray of tea and biscuits.

"Immensely powerful, dangerous in the wrong hands and an object of incredible fascination to all," Carla quoted, her eyes off-focus as her gaze was directed towards the envelope. "It's the Elder Wand." She spun, her gaze turned to the men who gave her the attention. "The most powerful wand in the universe…well, in that universe anyway. A terrible sort of weapon, that. Made with the hair of a thestral, a dark horse with wings, and elder wood. It follows the will of the one who kills its previous master."

"Weapon," Sherlock noted, putting down the instrument to plop into his chair, not before picking up John's cup. "The wand is the weapon, the weapon is the means and therefore we must find the wand."

He strode over to where Carla was standing, reaching over her to grab the case file Lestrade had sent over. He pulled the photos out from the envelope as Carla picked up the second teacup, John chewing thoughtfully on a biscuit as Sherlock tacked up the photos on the wall behind the couch. He heard Carla swallow thickly when the photos went up.

"Sherlock, you—"
"No, it's fine, Dr. Watson," Carla said with a deep breath. "Go ahead, Sherlock."

Obviously, Sherlock didn't need either of their permission to continue his observation. He commented that it was incredibly inconvenient that he was only relying on photographs. The scene would have been cleaned by now, especially since they thought it was a suicide. Still tutting to himself, Sherlock continued to look through the photos, standing on the couch like it was a stair step, saying observations out loud.
"Strangulations were made post-mortem, obviously. No defensive wounds to note. The stab is small, only a few millimetres in diameter and incredibly sharp. It had to be long enough to pierce through the important organs. A sword, perhaps?"

Carla was slightly surprised that John had joined him on the couch.

"A sword. Really," John asked sarcastically, making Sherlock glare at him.

"I don't recall inviting you up here, John," he said, bouncing on the couch a little to throw his friend off balance. John stumbled for a second, but maintained his position, still looking at the photos of the body.

"What are you, five bloody years old?"
"Six, actually," Sherlock corrected, continuing to bounce and observe, which was absolutely maddening. From Carla's spot near the fireplace, it was like she was watching a show on the telly. She stopped herself from giggling when John suddenly clamped a hand over Sherlock's shoulder, stopping him.

"Dizzy already, doctor?" Sherlock asked in a teasing voice, although it took him a second to realise that John had discovered something.

"Look at that," he said, pointing to a close up of Sir Francis' cheek. "I didn't see it earlier, but when it's been blown up like that…"

Sherlock almost shoved John off the couch when he looked. "Bruise on the left side of his face. It looks odd. Like something was imprinted on it. Carla, do you—"

There was a crash as she dropped her half-empty teacup on the floor, shattering it to pieces. Like the cup, it was like there was something in her that shattered as well, and John could tell it was much worse than what had happened to her in the cafe. This was sheer panic. Her entire body seemed to shake with fear, her legs looking like they were about to give out.

Sherlock, however, was fast. It took him three large strides to catch their consultant before she collapsed, easing her into his usual chair. Her hands were cold like she and been struck with ice, her breathing once again uneven.

"Carla," he said, his voice still firm but much more warm than it was earlier. "Carla, do you recognise these bruises?"
She nodded, tears springing into her eyes. She tried bravely to shrug them off, but they just kept coming, like the bad memory that was trying to take over her. Sherlock held her by the shoulders, trying to get her to breathe and focus.

"How did you—"
"I h-had them," she said, her voice sounded strained, like she was forcing the confession out of herself. "When I was a l-little girl, I had them. All over my arms. It h-hurt, so badly."

"Who gave them to you?" Sherlock asked, his hand brushed the hair from her face in a comforting gesture. She wheezed and sobbed, like it was almost too difficult to even think about it.

"Uncle Cadmus," she said, the first time in several years that she had admitted it to anyone. She tried to push away the thoughts of her uncle coming into her room, telling her to keep quiet. He would hurt her when she tried to make noises. Hit her. "It's from his ring. His black stallion ring."

Then she gave into the tears, her body folding completely to Sherlock's touch. Much to John's surprise, the consulting detective wrapped his arms around her and let her sob, helping her up. "Get some rest," he spoke, helping her into the bedroom. The sobbing stopped after a few moments, Sherlock emerging from the room with a dark look on his face.

"That was…that was good of you," John said, not really knowing what to say.

"Nobody deserves that kind of treatment, John," Sherlock said, deeply disturbed. "There is no rationalising such behaviour." He moved to the seat Carla had previously occupied, stippling his fingers as he stared blankly into the wall. "Now, however, we have a clear suspect."

"Cadmus Young, the brother," John said, looking at the bruises again to see the outline of the stallion embedded in Sir Francis' skin. "You think she ever told her father about it, what he did?"

"I'm sure she did," Sherlock said, his gaze still unfocused. "There are signs. Francis had drafted the will we found weeks after he had supposedly disowned Carla. She was written back in, and Cadmus was written out. Their argument must have stemmed from Carla trying to confess to her father what Cadmus had done, only to have the tables turn against her when her father refused to believe her."

"But why go to her uncle, then?" John asked. "If he was the one who did this to her, why would she work for him?"

"Are you familiar with Stockholm Syndrome?" Sherlock asked his friend, his eyes looking over where John was now standing. "I observed the way she acted around her uncle. She obviously responded to his cold demeanour and his cruelty. When I spoke harshly during her panic attack, she listened. Classic signs that she still thought highly of her abuser. Her delicate mental state had her confusing fear for love."

"God," John said, pressing a hand to his creased forehead.

"Cadmus learned that he was no longer included in his brother's will and confronted him. Sir Francis Young informs his brother of his knowledge of the truth behind Carla's past trauma. Cadmus, wanting to silence his brother, punched him with his ring then killed him with a weapon of some kind," Sherlock said, the incident almost perfectly clear in his mind. But still, the weapon was a mystery to him. They knew who they were after, but without the murder weapon, they had nothing against Cadmus Young except an odd bruise.

The next thing Sherlock realized, it was morning. John was visibly absent from his apartment, and Carla was sitting on the couch, watching him with a cup of tea in her hand. She'd obviously had a shower, wearing a robe she had borrowed from him. She looked at Sherlock strangely, like she wasn't sure how to regard him.

"Where's John?" Sherlock asked, suddenly feeling the strain on his body of not having slept a wink the entire night.

"He left hours ago," Carla said, sipping her cup, obviously much calmer now. Her eyes were still slightly swollen, though. "Something about breakfast with Mary. Did you want some tea?"

"No," he said in an oddly tried voice. "How…how are you?"
"I'm fine," she said with a small smile. "Not completely better. I'm sorry you had to see that. Twice."
"I don't see why you would apologise for a perfectly natural reaction to unaddressed childhood trauma," Sherlock said, standing up to stretch a little. "MRS. HUDSOOOOON!" He hollered into the open doorway, heading to the kitchen. "I would recommend a few barbiturates for that, but then again, a mind like yours may be too precious to waste."

He strode over to the door, hollering again. "MRS. HUDSOOOON!"
"If you're being sarcastic, I can't tell," she said. Sherlock paused like she had just issued him a challenge.

"Last night," he said, barely missing a beat in the conversation. "You were able to match the notes to Mozart's composition perfectly. The change of tempo and pitch usually throws other musicians off, but you knew better. Your hands are always perfectly manicured, and I have noticed that you carry around with you not one, but two tubes of expensive hand cream. So, piano. I rarely find good accompanists to my playing nowadays, and would find it such a waste if I let you lose that skill to drugs."

"So…sarcasm?"

Sherlock blinked. "Well…yes."

"Alright," she said. "May I venture a deduction?"

"Please," he said, Mrs. Hudson totally forgotten as he walked back to his previous pose on his chair. "Deduce me."

"Right," she said, placing the teacup on the saucer and her back against the couch. "Judging by the state of your clothes and the position at which I saw you, you didn't sleep last night. Most people would think it was because you spent the night racking your brains for the solution to my father's death, but no. Your violin, which I assume helps you think, is still in the same place you left it before I went to bed. Your coat collar is still turned up where you hung it," she said, indicating the aforementioned coat hanging behind the door. "So you left the house sometime last night. Possibly to find the means of the crime. Whatever it was, you were successful. You know how my uncle killed my father, which is why you can now afford to deduce more of my personality."

Sherlock blinked at her.

"How was that?" she asked him.

"Good," he said with a smile. "Now get dressed, Miss Young. We have a killer to catch."

The party assembled at Lestrade's office just before the Detective Inspector had his first cup of coffee. John, roused out of bed at Sherlock's insistence and Mary's gentle threats, was still not completely awake. Sherlock, however, looked like he had slept all night. Clearly it was solving crimes that nourished this creature. Lestrade looked over the will and the photos from them.

"Well, go ahead then," he said to Sherlock. "You have the floor."

Sherlock swept around the room like an actor in front of the assembled audience of John, Mary, Carla and Greg. He turned up his collar, making John roll his eyes, and began the big reveal.

"My client," he began. "Asked me to find the means, motive and opportunity of which Sir Francis Young had died. Now, silly children's fiction aside—"
"I would hardly call Harry Potter silly—" Lestrade began.

"George, honestly, what is the point of you asking me to do this?" Sherlock said, his eyes flashing murderously at the policeman behind the desk.
"I didn't ask you to do this. You came here on your own," he pointed out.

"As I was saying," Sherlock said, silencing the Detective Inspector with a look. "Frances Young somehow asked me to find her father's killer and build a case. We noted the presence of a distinct bruise on Sir Francis' left cheek in the shape of a black stallion. Cadmus Young was born Abastor Cadmus Young. His name, quite literally means, a black stallion. Connect this with the clue of the thestrals—we have our suspect and one of the two means that he was killed."
"The stabbing?" John asked. Sherlock nodded.
"The motive is the will. Obviously. The means, a precise stab to the abdomen and a staged suicide. Like I said before, the weapon had to have been long, sharp and precise." He whipped out his phone, browsing something on it for a second before showing the screen to his audience.

"I had some of my people trail Cadmus Young since the start of the investigation," he spoke. "As you can see, he is never seen without his inconspicuous black brolly. Certainly not odd, but given the unexpectedly sunny weather we've been having for the last few days, it is something to consider." Sherlock said, walking to the bin in Lestrade's office that had a few brollies in. He pulled out a black one with a silver tip, placing it on Lestrade's desk. "May I present, the Elder Wand," he said with a flourish.

"Hang on, did you steal this?" Lestrade asked.

"I am not saying I didn't, but I can assure you this belongs to Cadmus Young," he said, indicating the handle where his name was actually engraved. "Im sure you will find traces of Sir Francis' blood on the false brolly tip, as I did."

Within hours, Abastor Cadmus Young was clapped in darbies and sent to jail. The media and news had hailed the 'Boffin Sherlock Holmes and his companion Bachelor John Watson' once again as heroes of England, a thought that both irritated and secretly pleased Sherlock. Carla had opted to say in her flat when the arrest was made—she would rather not see her uncle again. She felt lighter than she had been in years, almost free. John had assured her that therapy would help, and she hoped to the high heaven that it would.

It wasn't until nearly lunchtime, when Carla was playing Rachmaninov on her Steinway baby grand, that Sherlock walked right into her flat. She jumped at his intrusion.

"The Invisibility Cloak," he said simply.

"I'm sorry, what?" She asked him. "How did you know where I lived?"
"Please," Sherlock asked like the explanation was beneath even her.

"Right," she said. "Cloak?"

"The Deathly Hallows," he continued, like he was in kind of a trance. "The Stone, the Wand, the Cloak. Motive, means, opportunity. We haven't finished the case." He didn't even bother hanging up his coat this time, tossing it to the side before he picked it up and placed it neatly behind the chair. No need to be sloppy.
"My sister is still missing," Carla presumed. "Uncle Cadmus had no idea she was missing when you questioned him."

"She must have seen what had happened," Sherlock surmised, striding around the room. "She feared for her own life and made herself disappear while she hired me to build a case against Cadmus. As a witness, she provides the opportunity at which Cadmus killed your father."

Carla had closed her top of the piano, resting her elbows on it. "The cloak makes the user invisible, even to Death."

Sherlock paused suddenly, picking up his coat once again and walking out the door. This time, Carla knew better than to reconsider following. Sherlock hailed a cab and they both got in. She hadn't heard him give an address.

"Rachmaninov, Concerto no. 2," he said like he was talking about the weather. She nodded at his assessment.
"A little generous with the forte, but still, a good interpretation," he said, straightening his scarf. Carla sighed. How on earth was she able to keep up with him for so long?
"Where are we going, Sherlock?"

"The one place Harry Potter ever felt safe," he said, as the cab pulled up to their destination.

Carla followed him down and turned to the entrance gates of a tall brick building, closed for the summer holidays. The gates had been left ajar, so it was easy to enter. A short walk up the driveway revealed that they were in a school. In the distance, they heard someone attempting to murder her violin. Carla laughed, her eyes filled with happy tears.

"You read the books, didn't you?" she asked him.

"I'd wager my client is inside," Sherlock said, turning to Carla with a satisfied grin. She quickly squeezed his shoulder in thanks before rushing into the building.

"Master of Death indeed," he said with a smile, watching the Young sisters finally reunite.

END